A Bad Boy is Good to Find (21 page)

Nothing.

He threw the car into park, jerking them all forward again.

One ragged wooden stilt stuck up out of the muddy dirt.

Nothing and no one there.

“This is the place,” he muttered. So low he could barely hear his own voice. “Must have washed away.”

Lizzie had a hand pressed to her mouth.

A terrible wave of relief swept over him, followed by an undertow of guilt. Was this really it?

Oh, yes. He could feel pain and anger still lodged in the damn trees.

He jumped out of the car. The ground squelched beneath his feet. Wetter than it used to be, sinking into the swamp around them. The road continued on through the trees, but not for much further, he’d bet.

All gone. Except the memories, and he’d sure tried to get rid of those. As shadows of the past crowded toward him, he stiffened his back, like a gladiator ready to fight for his life in the ring. He was angry as hell and done keeping quiet. If Lizzie didn’t like it she had no one but herself to blame.

She climbed out the Jeep and picked her way toward him. Her sandals sank into the dark mud.

“Home sweet home,” he said coolly.

She hugged herself. Smacked at a mosquito on her arm. Her trendy outfit left her exposed and her forehead creased into a pained expression that softened him. Almost.

What had she expected? Lizzie figured it would be a shack in a swamp and here they were, the remains of a shack in a swamp. She was relieved there were no actual people here, but she’d never really thought there would be.

So where was her thrill of victory?

Con walked toward what was left of the stilt foundation and she followed, stick-littered mud squishing under her feet.

“This was the house,” he said, scratching his head. He seemed to have regained his cool. “Up on stilts, ’cause as you can see, it gets wet around here. Two rooms.” He gave a grim little smile that felt like a stab in her gut. “This what you expected?”

She nodded. Bit her lip.

“The bayou’s right back there. You can see it if you’re up a bit higher. We used to get around by boat. Didn’t have a car except for one time when my dad won a few dollars in the lottery. Gone soon enough though.”

He rested his hand on the blackened wood stump of the one remaining stilt. Stared right at her, his eyes black and focused.

Cool? He’d turned cold as ice.

She shuddered.

Are you happy now?
His angry stare demanded the question.

Shame heated her face and scattered her thoughts. Had she thought it would be funny that he came from what was—at least to her—grim poverty?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“What for? It’s not your fault I grew up dirt-poor. That some days I didn’t eat. That my parents were alcoholics.” He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

After a long pause he looked down at the dark earth, then back up at her. “It’s not your fault that my dad killed my mom, beat her to death.”

Her blood froze.

Con stared, black eyes seeing right through her, into some horrible otherworld. “He said it was an accident, that she fell out of the boat. Drowned. But I saw him do it. I was right there the whole time. Watching. Just like you’re watching me now.”

Lizzie shuddered. Groped for words. For breath.

“And I lied. Lied for two goddam years. Kept his filthy secret and betrayed my mother’s memory. Scared of his fists. Scared of being alone. Scared to death and wishing I was dead.”

He hadn’t moved a muscle.

Her hands shook and her breath came in gulps.

“He may be out there right now, walking around with blood on his hands. But I’m done keeping his secret.” He stared at her, eyes fierce, voice low. “I’m done keeping his secret.”

She tried to speak, but no words came out.

Finally Con broke the stare, shook his head and blew out a blast of air.

“I told you it was a long story, but it’s not so long after all, is it? Just a few words.”

She struggled for air. “Let’s go. We’ll leave right now. Go back to New York.” Her voice was shaking.

“No. No, we won’t.” The resolve in his dark eyes stole her breath. “We’re here now. I’ve been running from this place half my life, and I’m not running anymore.”

At that moment the van carrying the rest of the crew rattled into view. Lizzie wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed.

She wanted to reach out to Con, but his rigid bearing dared her to try it, like she’d get an electric shock if she touched him. She held up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. She realized Dino was still rolling, recording everything.

Maisie leaped out of the white van, clipboard in hands. “This the place?” She looked disapprovingly at the black stump next to Con. “Not much left, is there?”

“Um, Maisie.” Dino took the camera off his shoulder. “You need to see this.”

“See what? There isn’t anything to see.”

“The footage. Con just… um.” He looked at Con, then at Maisie. “You need to see it, that’s all.”

Maisie and Dino climbed into the van. Lizzie walked toward Con, slow, rigid and awkward. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Did you really want to know?” His voice was quiet, his face expressionless.

No
. “Yes. Of course. How can you carry a secret like that?”

“By burying it down real deep and pretending it isn’t there.” He looked down at the black mud, his voice toneless.

“By pretending you’re someone else?” she whispered.

He met her gaze. “Yes.”

The back doors of the van exploded open. “What do you mean by turning off the camera?” screeched Maisie at Dino. “Keep filming and don’t stop until I tell you.”

Lizzie cringed as Maisie stalked up to them, pale eyes flashing.

“Conroy—” Maisie turned to make sure Dino was filming. “Conroy, you’ve just shared some very painful revelations.” She positioned herself so as not to block the camera’s view of either Con or Lizzie. “Is it a relief to get this dark secret off your chest?”

He just stared at her.

Maisie sucked in a breath. “Your father killed your mother, right here on this spot.”

“Yes.”

“How does that make you feel?”

Again he just looked at her, as if he didn’t understand the question.

“Do you feel angry?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel sad?”

“Yes.”

Leave him alone
. Lizzie fought the urge to take his hand, which hung by his side only inches from hers. She still didn’t dare touch him. The whole situation seemed hotwired, explosive.

“Did your father ask you to lie for him?”

“There was no asking,” said Con, face composed. “He told us what to say, and we knew better than to cross him.”

“He used to beat you?”

“All the time.”

Maisie’s overdone expression of compassion made Lizzie’s hands clench into fists.

“You said
us
just now. Who else was there? Did you have brothers and sisters?”

A long pause drew out into a painful silence. Mosquitoes buzzed in the thick hot air, and Lizzie felt one sting her right ankle. She didn’t move.

“Yes. I have a brother.” Con’s voice was hoarse.

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Ten years ago.” His voice cracked. His bearing was still rigid, regal, hostile even. But Lizzie could feel something breaking inside him. Her hand itched to take hold of his.

She’d brought him here, thrown him into this hell of past nightmares, and now she wanted to comfort him?

She didn’t have the right
.

“What was his name?”

“Danny.”

Lizzie could see Maisie’s growing irritation at Con’s terse answers. Maisie tucked a stray piece of fine hair behind her ear and took a deep breath.

“Tell us, Conroy. When did you leave this place and how?”

Con shifted. Lizzie shifted too, a semiconscious mirroring of his movement. The spongy mud had crept up into her sandals.

“I left here when I was fourteen. My dad had beaten me, like he always did, for doing something, or not doing something, or for just being—I don’t even remember what it was about—but I knew at that moment that the next time he hit me, I was going to hit back.” Con raised a hand and wiped it over his mouth. “I knew I was going to hit back and try to kill him.” He stared off into the dark swamp. “So one of us would be dead, either him or me. I’d be dead, or a murderer. So I had to go. I just took off. Didn’t take nothing with me. Just left and didn’t come back.”

“And you left your brother behind.” Maisie spoke very quietly, which gave the words the force of a secret, an accusation.

Con’s sweat stung Lizzie’s nostrils. Her own perspiration trickled down her back like a scratching nail.

“I left him behind. I told him I was leaving and that I couldn’t take him with me. I didn’t know how to survive on my own, let alone with a kid, and I figured things might be easier for him with me gone. More to eat with one less person around.” He hesitated, looked at the ground, then lifted his eyes and looked right at Maisie. “I rationalized it.” Lizzie could see his chest heaving beneath his shirt. “I’ll never forgive myself for that. Never.”

“Did you ever try to get in contact again, with either of them?”

“No.”

Lizzie shuddered.

“Do you want to find out what happened to them?”

Con’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. “Yes.”

They all stood like statues for a moment. Lizzie could almost hear the blood humming in her head like the mosquitoes outside it. Maisie shoved her hair back. “Cut. Thanks, Conroy, I’m sure that was hard for you. So shall we go talk to the neighbors, see what they know about your family?”

Con looked at her for a moment, then nodded. His expression serious and dignified. Very controlled.

“Alright, let me just talk to the crew, and we’ll roll to the next house down the road.” She strode back to the van, all business.

Lizzie pressed her hand over her mouth. Spoke through her fingers. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. Why would you?” He wasn’t looking at her. “It’s weird how clean the place looks. There used to be a rusty boat hull I slept in sometimes, right over there.” He turned and nodded at a patch of woods. “I’ll bet you were hoping for some junk to give the place a colorful redneck flavor. Sorry to disappoint.”

Lizzie bit her lip. His tone was cruel. Worse yet, he was right. How could he talk so normally after that revelation? But of course it wasn’t a revelation to him. It was something he’d carried with him, every day, for the last ten years.

“Maybe the house got washed away in a hurricane,” she rasped.

“Yeah. Most people would have come down here to check on the place after a big storm. See if their family was okay, if they needed help, don’t you think?”

His look challenged her to respond.

“I… I…” She didn’t know what to say. There were no right answers.

“I didn’t.” He let out a harsh sound somewhere between a laugh and a growl. “Deep down, I was hoping the place—and everyone in it—was gone. Washed from the face of the earth. Then maybe my guilt would be gone too.”

He wiped a hand over his mouth. “But nothing’s ever really gone, is it? It lives on in here.” He tapped his forehead. “You can’t get rid of that.” He shook his head. “I’ve damn sure tried.”

He stared around him, and Lizzie bit her tongue. Sure that anything she said would be a mistake.

“Come see the bayou.” He reached out his hand. She looked at it like a snake that might bite, then gingerly took it. He gripped her hand hard, crushing her fingers together. She caught her breath and stumbled after him as he pulled her past the footprint of the house, into some scraggly undergrowth. He pushed through some damp, scratchy branches. “None of this brush was here. Place must have been uninhabited for years.” A branch scratched her arm and a twig poked at her exposed toes. Her hair snagged, and she wrenched it loose.

“There it is.”

Just through the thicket, they emerged on the bank of a river. The mud oozed thicker, closing over her toes, but Con didn’t seem to notice as he pulled her right to the edge. Murky blackish water gleamed in the midday sun. Lizzie shivered, despite the heat. Con gripped her hand with force, no hint of tenderness.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Beautiful? No. Strange and terrifying. All that glittering dark water looked like a bottomless chasm. An abyss that held at least one skeleton.

“Look, a heron.”

He pointed with his free hand as a huge, Wedgewood-blue bird took flight from a branch high above their heads. Lizzie flinched as it dove like a movie-screen pterodactyl, menacing in its great size and eerie color. Its beak cleaved the shining water, then with a massive flapping and splashing, it soared up again to the treetops.

“I haven’t seen one of those in years. I spent hours studying their fishing technique, trying to figure out how to do that. Great way to get wet and come up empty-handed.” He stared up at the now empty sky. “I always wished I could fly like a bird.”

How could he be so calm? Carry on a normal conversation as if he hadn’t just declared himself—on camera—to be witness to a murder? It was a burden he’d lived with and carefully hidden. Had spared her—until now.

She bit back tears that threatened.

Angry speech and rustling in the undergrowth heralded the arrival of Dino and Maisie.

“We didn’t know where you went,” hissed Maisie. “Why didn’t you wait for the camera?”

“Didn’t think of it. Sorry,” said Con. Cool as the rippling water. “I was showing Lizzie my home. This is where I really lived, out here on the bayou.”

“Are there alligators in it?” asked Maisie, wriggling her way into the shot.

“Sure.” Con flashed an alligator smile.

Lizzie searched the undergrowth anxiously, her skin prickling. He softened his grip on her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. “You can never be quite sure what to expect around here.”

Lizzie swallowed, took in a deep breath.

“Want to see how Mudbug Flats got its name?”

“Yes,” said Maisie. “I can see it’s flat. And mudbug is a colloquialism for crayfish, isn’t it?”